Full Solar Eclipse (and New Moon) in Scorpio, November 13, 2012

" I still carry the land so deep in my bones that I cannot bear to go back...Perhaps to know so familiar a place better it must become strange again."
-Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise.

I am reading two books by Ellen Meloy at the moment, Eating Stone (her last and final book) and The Anthropology of Turquoise. Choosing not to read the books from front cover to end, this morning as Pete and I sat to eat oatmeal together I flipped to a page in The Anthropology of Turquoise and found the lines quoted above. From her essay "Waiting Its Occasions" the descriptions contain threads broad and lumpy weaving place, people, legacies and spirit together in a heart-rich rendering. "The true heart of a place does not come in a week's vacation. To know it well, as Mary Austin wrote, one must "wait its occasions"--follow full seasons and cycles, a retreating snowpack, a six-year drought, a ponderosa pine eating up a porch. Meloy writes about memories of her Sierra days of "witless youth and enflamed senses" in this essay. Sparked by Meloy's words I consider the naturalist's essays in concert with the cycles and landscape I navigate as sun, moon, earth, planets and stars align with the life that becomes my memories.

The Solar Eclipse occurs when the Sun, Moon and Earth line up in such a way that the Moon obscures the Sun from the Earth. This can only occur during a [ New Moon phase.] The human response to the Solar Eclipse is both physical and psychological. It is not uncommon for the individual to develop an awareness of change shortly before, during and after an eclipse. Solar Eclipses focus the spotlight onto the Self...The Solar Eclipse can help you to regroup and focus, for a while, on an area in your life that may need extra attention or change.

Source: http://www.lunarliving.org/moon/astrology-solareclipses-zodiachouses.html

New Moon, the Hilo Moon in the Hawaiian Moon Calendar is a time of new beginnings. With the solar eclipse this month (days before my 65th birthday) I am aware of the bridge of opportunity available. Like the old Mission Impossible line, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it ..." I can't cross that bridge if I don't know its there. The astrology of the solar eclipse in the sign of Scorpio using the Equal House System shines into my 11th House of friends, relationships, affiliations. Drawing again from LunarLiving, I found this:

With the Solar Eclipse in the 11th House: The focus is on society and the human race. Group interests and organizational involvement become more significant in one's life. It is typically through eleventh house relationships and experiences that charitable viewpoints develop. One's own sense of worth is advanced when selfless humanitarian acts become a common practice or accepted as a natural decree of the universe.

Small and significant affiliations link me to the community where Pete and I live. More than ever, at least more than has been the case for years now, I am enjoying company. Releasing myself from the isolation of illness and trauma, my boundaries are healthier and fit me better today. Moment to moment, and day into night I come to know this self because, for a time (years) I did not know who I was or where I was. To become familiar again, I needed to become a hermit cloistered in tinier and tinier spaces with little outside stimulation. Feeling my way through the moments allowed confidence to grow from the inside out ... slowly.While I cloistered, my 12th House Moon (in Capricorn) was able to restore the emotional ground around me: I wrote, I wrote, I write. Servicing my self through blogging, and creating one after another, the act of witnessing my life served (12th House). Healing and recovering in the privacy of my world in the woods, a body of writing has toned my muscle for affiliation. I know myself as I am now not as I was before or at the peak of the illness. That bridge of opportunity is reworked, marked "Mission Impossible"  and lit with the illumination of a Hilo Moon of new beginnings.

If you need one more idea about making sure of the energy of this Solar Eclipse, click here for an insight from Elsa P. Set an intention for this New Moon.


Where does the Scorpio New Moon and Solar Eclipse illuminate your astrology (what house)?



The total solar eclipse will be visible in the southern hemisphere of Earth November 13-14, 2012. Click here to check out when the solar eclipse is visible in your part of the world.

Inoculated by the Wild

inoculate

verb

Definition: 1. to give a small amount of a disease to a person or animal as a protection against that disease; 2. to introduce an idea into someone's mind in hope that the idea or lesson will [figuratively] grow and become part of the person
Synonyms: immunize, vaccinate, aid, inject, prevent [sickness], protect, ingrain, introduce, insert, implant
Antonyms:
Tips: Inoculate is derived from the Latin inoculare, which means "graft in, implant." To inoculate someone means to implant them with something, whether figuratively, with an idea, or literally, with a vaccine against an illness. Source: http://vocabulary-vocabulary.com/dictionary/inoculate.php

A ragged poultice made from the juice of wheat grass and its pulp is wrapped with a small leaf of la'i (Hawaiian ti leaf). Held at first with a thin rubber band, then one of my hair twisties, and now a couple of proper Band-Aids the poultice does its work. Green stains seep from the wet pulp as I sit to write about something I'm not quite sure is the truth though it truly feels that way in my guts. A few days ago as I went to the warm corner of our Au Hale (the bath house/sewing room/laundry) to get my scarf and jacket a spider frightened me or I frightened her from her cozy place. Instinctively I flung the scarf and Spider went flying against the upright. I had stunned her. "I am so sorry," right away I knew she was hurt and there was nothing I could do to undo my act. I watched for several moments to assuage my guilt and when I saw that she was alive though injured (one of her legs was dangling) and crawling into a new dark hole I finished dressing and went on with the errand which was my original goal.

Two days ago I noticed a small something on my right finger -- the one that types the U and the H -- the pointing finger. It looked like a pin prick. I thought back to what that might be but nothing came to mind, until yesterday. Spider. Two remedies from the plant world are my first-aiders: Noni and Wheat grass. I went for the remedy from home first and slept with a poultice of the Noni fruit leather over night. This morning I opened the wrapping. The bite was infected and two small pricks were visible. More than likely, Spider. Choosing not to panic nor deny something was going on that required attending I told Pete about it. He swiftly asked, "Did you try wheat grass?" I had not. Next he said, "Look it up (on the Internet) and see what you find." I did that. It was early morning and not quite dawn, too dark to go to the Green House to cut and juice the tray of growing wheat. While Pete finished making our oatmeal I searched the Internet and found things to do. Again, I chose not to panic, but acted.

While Pete sat at the laptop and ate his breakfast I pulled on warm clothes and a hat and headed for the Green House. A slim row of the green oxygen and mineral rich wheat grass was my second source of first-aid. Juiced, the grass from Hard Winter Wheat Berries is always growing somewhere near-by. It's a routine, a habit Pete began years ago when we were raw foodies.  Thankful for his consistency we use the juice to nurse ourselves and our JOTS for all manner of injury. This summer when I noticed the Tall One alongside the Quonset was being ruptured by the industrious ants who nest under his skin I asked, "How can I help?" Softly I heard "A poultice of grass," as an answer. I did that and from my vardo window I see the poultice now dried from the summer heat now part of the Tall One and no ants.

In several places in my daily travels to blogs and sites the idea of inoculation has stimulated much commentary (on the blogs) and in my meditations. The definition that precedes this musing is one of many definitions available on the Internet. I chose this one for it offered a broader and more meaningful bridge to cross. From the definition above I found these synonyms useful: " aid, inject, prevent [sickness], protect, ingrain, introduce, insert, implant." I thought of the Tall One with its implant of wheat grass poultice. Again and again the image of our sleek black huntress JOTS after a bout with prey who fought fiercely and inflicted her with wounds. Green juice and poultices applied. Licking the wound and the juice made the healing happen with time.

Astrological inoculation is a topic being discussed at my astrologer's blog. Those discussion stimulate me to make connections between the incidents of my life, my world where the wild is an apothecary. As well as the positions and angles of the heavens which do provide me with awareness, there are options in my first-aid kit that tether me to the wild and I am awed. Here, this morning, Terri Windling offers one more offering, an ointment of art and words that inoculate me. Inoculate me as in 'graft me' to the wild rather than to cure me of the wild I hope to learn successively to note the messages and the messengers where I find them. Windling quotes a writer I wish I had known while she lived in her skin. Ellen Meloy is writer I was introduced to this morning, thanks to Terri Windling. From her book Eating Stone: Imagination and the loss of the wild is this beautiful thought from Meloy:

"Homo sapiens have left themselves few places and scant ways to witness other species in their own worlds, an estrangement that leaves us hungry and lonely. In this famished state, it is no wonder that when we do finally encounter wild animals, we are quite surprised by the sheer truth of them."

Surprised by the sheer truth of how the wild inoculates me through a bite from Spider, a sting from Wasp, a song from Raven, a voice from The Tall Ones -- this  happens as I age and live day and night in the woods. Rather than to cut myself off from the estrangement Meloy speaks of I hope there is enough strength with me to to become more wild, rather than tamed. Stupid? No, unusual in my route is how someone described my ways. Pela. Perhaps.